Grosseto, clandestine immigration network defeated: entrepreneur and wife arrested

They were convinced to come to Italy with the promise of a job and a residence permit, all at a cost of 10,000 euros each. Once they arrived, however, they discovered that the promised jobs in the agricultural sector were fictitious. Without work, the immigrants would have been crammed into accommodation paying a rent of 250 euros per month and in order to obtain the renewal of their residence permit they were forced to pay up to a thousand euros for the issuing of false pay slips.

This is what was reconstructed in an investigation coordinated by the Grosseto prosecutor's office which led to the arrest of a 64-year-old businessman from Grosseto and his wife, a 49-year-old Moroccan: complicity in aiding and abetting illegal immigration was the crime charged.

The couple ended up in prison following a precautionary custody order carried out yesterday by the Grosseto carabinieri, who were involved with their police section and the financial police in investigations which, as a note states, "made it possible to reveal a well-tested system which transformed the legal procedure of the 'Flow Decree' into a real source of income". The illegal entry into Italy of 31 non-EU citizens was confirmed and 22 irregular entry visas were issued. The investigations were triggered by the complaints presented in 2024 by several foreigners. The picture reconstructed by the investigators would have revealed "a real tariff applied by the couple, who recruited non-EU citizens directly in their country of origin", mostly in Morocco. The investigators also acquired diaries, accounting statements and notes in which there appear to be "lists of names, advance payments and balances recorded in euros and Moroccan currency. In the IT media used by the suspects" they then found "contracts for the supply of labor for very large amounts, including an order worth almost 500 thousand euros stipulated with a company just created by the suspect herself.

These contracts turned out to be, in fact, false": the client companies were either unaware or out of business or bankrupt or registered in the names of deceased people. The couple was also arrested due to the risk of tampering with evidence: "On several occasions, it emerged that possible witnesses had been suborned by the suspects".